In a place far beyond yet just brushing what most humans would consider the ends of the world, a being of many minds and one purpose idly watched as the smaller serpent expertly rode a wave and deposited the young fire within their palm. They protectively brought it closer to their center and reached out to it with the barest twitch of their thoughts.

The flickering dance it performed as its first strands reached out, seeking new fuel to allow itself to grow brought an upward curl to many lips upon unseen faces and a cautious narrowing of the eyes to others. The blaze was small now. A mere spark compared to the fires that had forged and birthed it. But soon, for good or for ill, it would grow. And perhaps when it did it would prove worthy. Unwillingly, memories flashed through their collective of the last they had thought ready as they and the serpentine servant exchanged with each other.

Spark of they?

Yes. Why water unquench?

Returned ours beneath. Know rules of they. Thought use.

It became clear that the Drowned God was potentially more clever then R'hllor had given him credit for. The Breathless likely remembered that it had been on their orders that the child of R'hllor the Ironborn now called Naga had been slain on his orders. But now by saving this spark of the Ever-Burning, he hoped to cancel out the debt R'hllor would otherwise have taken as due.

R'hllor nodded some heads while others turned their cheeks and yet still more narrowed their eyes. They had not quite forgiven the sanctioned murder of Naga, but they knew better than to pass off a source of potential illumination.

Wits. Good use. Willing partner if willing.

Hoped. Acceptance temporary. Speak soon.

And the serpent faded into the waves that receded back to the realm of the Deep Dweller. The spark still had a wetness to it, likely an effect of being partly at the Drowned God's mercy in the mortal world even as their essence belonged to R'hllor here. As the Red probed their child's essence, they discovered it was in turmoil.

Questions. Lies. Truth. Unsure. What is? What was? What now?

They had to answer their child's queries as best they were able even as the subject of Cularis pained them so. So they revealed what had been and held nothing back. They recalled the bright child who burned bright even in the light of day. Whose light shone so bright he believed it to erase his darkness. When shown the truth of it, had refused to accept what was and instead sought to impose his idea of it upon the essences of light and shadow both. And from there it had descended into disaster.

It was naught now but a mind broken by the truth of itself that lay within the heart of the flames. A soul dwarfed and consumed by the scope of its own potential power for choosing to attempt to fill both the fire and the dark with its presence only to be consumed by both. Nothing but rampant destruction had resulted. All that remained of what the last had once been was madness and an insurmountable hatred of all things that lived in the in-between that worshiped the limitless world to which it could neither enter nor ever return.

As there had always been a light in the dark, so too has there always been a void beyond the edge. This they had discovered through their followers of times before, but never had their descendants tried such a thing since the beginning. They had the spark watch the fires of what was burning away what had been to breathe life into that which they hoped might be as they carefully placed the young ember within their smoldering core, to better protect it in case the coming exchange took a turn for the worse. It was for the best: for they had to protect their best hope for a new ascension and rebirth as best they could from the foes they could.

For now, they were in a careful truce with these others that they sought. Countless generations had passed between their being driven across the bridge by the Black Goat after all. They had vowed they would not seek to harm those whom their former disciple had already taken so much from. But now…now they looked to influence the world more directly as the young spark had taken from their intentions and their images. And if that meant allying with those who mistrusted and hated them (not without cause it had to be remembered for even as their mutual history was a somewhat soured one they knew they always demanded exchange and so took as they needed that they might better sustain their own power) simply for following what came naturally to them than so be it.

They took a deep but unnecessary breath. This was not the time for doubt. There was still more to be done if they were to prepare their child student for his potential role as their successor. They did not know what if anything their hatchling would remember upon returning to the mortal world: but they knew this had to be done.

With hardly a blink, they found themselves before a mighty yet creaking tree, its' once countless limbs and bloody leaves that could be mistaken for their own fires in the right lights now fewer, drooping with neglect. They were being killed by the hubris of the ignorant in the here; those whose attempts to usurp their position as gods of their only recently settled western world had left them reeling even now.

The countless Eyes of Crimson crinkled and blinked as they remembered the birth of these that the race of men amusingly called the 'Old Gods.' They were no older than their own scaled children were fonts of wisdom nor were they even counted as the only spirits of nature that attempted to make their presence in the closed world. But in both cases, they were not truly meant to be. Like the first R'hllor, they were meant to function instead as conduits. As a vessel of understanding and power to flow through so that the shadows of ignorance may have been bathed in a light of understanding.

Now of course, in their spite they choose to forget how much they owed to the Reddened Faces in those early days of godhood, when they did not understand what their purpose was, how they were meant to be in both this the open world and the other the closed one they had been birthed from. But their unwillingness to be a part of both led to their being almost entirely consumed by one of the former red followers who had turned away from R'hllor and styled himself as a voice for the natural world. The horned headdress he had so enjoyed in life had come back to form him in the image of that ridiculous black goat when he attempted to assume his rightful mantle. But these 'Old Gods' who had simply been before, they thought that because they had lived through one brush with true death (better known to any of the gods who had sense as the Return to Nothing) that it made them true deities as the humans might think of it.

Had they been so inclined, the Lightbringers would have expressed their amusement at the quaint idea.

A true deity lived on through many lives that culminated in death after death. Suffered through humiliation and corruption and purity and all of the ups and downs the world that had given them life so commanded. The Crimson Eyes were not limited by the imagination of men any longer. Had not been since the ashes of their first rebirth had grown cold and given birth to their twin: Other. The One of the Abyss. The One who sought always to rejoin the Whole of the Light even as they could never be accepted back. Over time the ashes from countless rebirths upon countless worlds and times and places had made their Other powerful enough to be a challenge and a partner. The One that possessed all the strength of countless deaths yet had no real life of its own. No distinctive sense of self. It only knew what it was not. And for that: it would eternally thirst and hunger and lust for even as it hated and reviled how the Light's very nature would drive them away and yet was intrinsically entwined with its own.

As they stood before the grand tree, they sensed it question their intentions. They heard the few leaves whisper titles of lives and incarnations that were their past, their present and their future in one and many.

Destroyer.

Devourer.

Death.

They had become, could be and were no longer all of these things. They saw no need to correct these pups that snapped toothless jaws at their betters to maintain a façade of strength. They proposed a bargain to the Wild Things. An alliance of convenience as it were. They could see that to burn the remaining health out of them would be pointless, not when the chaotic carelessness of men could do that for them. But they also wished to burn away the excess and extraneous that threatened to choke mankind's civilization in the West before spreading back to what had once been their shared home. The part of the closed world that had given birth to them in the open world.

The Wild Things were rightfully untrusting, simplistic beings that they were. They wished to know what it was they could expect from the Endless Mouths who only knew how to consume. They Who Tend the Flames of Creation answer in some tongues of fire that with whispers they can speak to the minds of men, while other voices of heat claim that their thoughts can resonate in the hearts of men and yet more shouting ashes glow with pride and claim that their power shall invigorate the blood of those who stand beside them while cooling those who stand against that which shall always be present at the beginning and at the end.

The Countless Legions smiled as one. They then told of the new spark, whose blood was that of Life and Nature. The Wild Things were incensed. They had sworn to not directly interfere in the realm of men. Not after how men had treated them twice over. How men had worshiped and then raised up other men above them. Cast them from their homes to this condemned frozen land that was only one step removed from the realm of oblivion. The Sun-Blooded did not bother responding, knowing that one day their time would come when they wished to rediscover what it meant to be one of those who had created them for a time. If only to better understand them. As the Sun-Blooded explained how this might be the start of something new, they felt the hope of the Wild Things blossom inside of them, a new and altogether beautifully dangerous plant extending the first roots in a harsh and unforgiving environment.

To see these younglings return to the vigor they had once possessed. And then to see if they were worthy of retaining their position. That was what it meant to be satisfied as The Eternal Elders.

As the bargain was struck and the temporary alliance finalized between mistrusting hordes, the many who had been could not help but think that for all their power and experience, they were not entirely sure which of the many directions all of this could go.

So they left the realm of the Blinded Trees, prompted by the need to awaken their spark in the realm of the mortal now. As they felt the spark return to consciousness, their presence returning to the burning echo it had been once before and yet had strengthened in the wake of its revelations at their hands, they thought of how it excited them beyond measure to venture into the darkness of their own ignorance for the first time in countless years.